100%: the Story of a Patriot eBook

“Now,” said Peter, “it’s like
this. These police and all these fellows mean
well, but they don’t understand; it’s too
complicated, they ain’t been in this movement
long enough. They’re used to dealing with
criminals; but these Reds, you see, are cranks.
Criminals ain’t organized, at least they don’t
stand together; but these Reds do, and if you fight
’em, they fight back, and they make what they
call `propaganda.’ And that propaganda is
dangerous—­if you make a wrong move, you
may find you’ve made ’em stronger than
they were before.”

“Yes, I see that,” said the old man.
“Well?”

“Then again, the police dunno how dangerous
they are. You try to tell them things, they won’t
really believe you. I’ve known for a long
time there was a group of these people getting together
to kill off all the rich men, the big men all over
the country. They’ve been spying on these
rich men, getting ready to kill them. They know
a lot about them that you can’t explain their
knowing. That’s how I got the idea they
had somebody in your house, Mr. Ackerman.”

“Tell me what you mean. Tell me at once.”

“Well, sir, every once in a while I pick up
scraps of conversation. One day I heard Mac—­”

“Mac?”

“That’s McCormick, the one who’s
in jail. He’s an I. W. W. leader, and I
think the most dangerous of all. I heard him whispering
to another fellow, and it scared me, because it had
to do with killing a rich man. He’d been
watching this rich man, and said he was going to shoot
him down right in his own house! I didn’t
hear the name of the man—­I walked away,
because I didn’t want him to think I was trying
to listen in. They’re awful suspicious,
these fellows; if you watch Mac you see him looking
around over his shoulder every minute or two.
So I strolled off, and then I strolled back again,
and he was laughing about something, and I heard him
say these words; I heard him say, `I was hiding behind
the curtain, and there was a Spanish fellow painted
on the wall, and every time I peeked out that bugger
was looking at me, and I wondered if he wasn’t
going to give me away.’”

And Peter stopped. His eyes had got used to the
twilight now, and he could see the old banker’s
eyes starting out from the crescents of dark, puffy
flesh underneath. “My God!” whispered
Nelse Ackerman.

“Now, that was all I heard,” said Peter.
“And I didn’t know what it meant.
But when I learned about that drawing that Mac had
made of your house, I thought to myself, Jesus, I
bet that was Mr. Ackerman he was waiting to shoot!”

“Good God! Good God!” whispered the
old man; and his trembling fingers pulled at the embroidery
on the coverlet. The telephone rang, and he took
up the receiver, and told somebody he was too busy
now to talk; they would have to call him later.
He had another coughing spell, so that Peter thought
he was going to choke, and had to help him get some
medicine down his throat. Peter was a little
bit shocked to see such obvious and abject fear in
one of the gods. After all, they were just men,
these Olympians, as much subject to pain and death
as Peter Gudge himself!